Bardhere Airport reopening reported in 2015, what it left open

On 21 August 2015, Goobjoog News reported that the administration of Bardhere town and officials from the Interim Jubba Administration had officially opened the town's airport, which it said had been dormant for a decade. The report did not name the Bardhere officials who held the ceremony.

Who spoke, and what they claimed

IJA vice president Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail Fartaag, as reported by Goobjoog News on 21 August 2015, said the airport had been officially opened and would operate fully. He also stated that Bardhere airport is the second largest airport in Jubbaland state, and that UN aid agencies and other NGOs would soon resume operations in Gedo region.

The same report attributes to Fartaag a call on local travel agencies to open offices in the town and commence operations, and a statement that people could, from that moment, travel to many parts of the country using Bardhere airport.

Fartaag further said, according to Goobjoog News, that UN delegations had come to the town on an assessment mission and would soon ship in aid comprising food and non-food items as well as medicine.

What the report records about the ceremony

Goobjoog News reported that the Somali Minister of defence and officials from the African Union mission AMISOM attended the opening ceremony in Bardhere town. The report does not name the minister or the AMISOM officials.

Goobjoog News also reported that days earlier a high level delegation from WFP, FAO, UNICEF, UNDP and WHO, led by UN head of Humanitarian activities in Somalia Peter de Clercq, had reached the town. No specific date is given for that visit or for the assessment mission.

On the background, Goobjoog News reported that Bardhere town used to be the largest stronghold for Al-Shabab's top officials and its foreign jihadist fighters before they fled after a heavy military assault by Somali government forces and AMISOM. The report does not date that assault. It also reported that Bardhere airport, described as a backbone for humanitarian aid agencies and local flights, had stopped operating after Al-Shabab fighters banned UN and other NGOs backed by western countries from areas under their control.

What the report does not establish

The report establishes that a ceremony took place and that officials made statements. It does not establish that flights operated at Bardhere Airport afterward. There is no evidence in the reporting of throughput, passenger numbers or cargo volumes at any time after the opening. Nor is there evidence that UN aid agencies or other NGOs resumed operations in Gedo region, that local travel agencies opened offices or commenced operations in the town, or that aid comprising food, non-food items and medicine was shipped into Bardhere as announced. All of those were stated intentions or calls to action.

The report does not state who funded, contracted or supervised the airport's reopening, who owns or operates it, what facilities are available, what its passenger capacity is, or which airlines would serve it. It gives no contract value or budget.

What to watch

What the record leaves open is the gap between a ceremony and traffic: whether aircraft actually used the field, which operators moved in, and whether the aid and agency activity Fartaag forecast materialised. None of that is answered by the 2015 report, and no later evidence is before this publication.